Congestion from incidents often generates secondary crashes, further increasing traveler delay and frustration. The longer incident responders remain at the scene, the greater the risk they, and the traveling public, face. Minimizing the time and resources required for incident clearance is essential to meeting our goals for safety and reliability. The SHRP2-developed National Traffic Incident Management Responder Training Program (L12) offers a new coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach to training that is now available for all emergency responders and those supporting Traffic Incident Management operations. The training helps build a team of qualified trainers within each state or region, using a common set of practices and advanced standards. It puts police, firefighters, state and local departments of transportation, towing, medical personnel, and other incident responders on the same page, leading to a safer, faster, integrated responder team. Responders can more quickly reduce the time it takes to clear accidents, offering the benefits of reduced congestion and travel time savings, as well as the potential to better protect our incident responders. |